Inspirational Quotes by Alister McGrath
“Imagination is the gatekeeper of the human soul.”
“Lewis began to realize that atheism did not—and could not—satisfy the deepest longings of his heart or his intuition that there was more to life than what was seen on the surface.”
“TO BE asked to minister without an informing vision of God (which is what theology is really all about), however, is like being told to make bricks without straw. What keeps people going in ministry, and what, in my experience, congregations are longing for, is an exciting and empowering vision of God, articulated in a theology that is integrated with worship, prayer, and social action.”
“The English experience suggested that nobody really doubted the existence of God until theologians tried to prove it.”
“On Tolkien: "His fussiness threatened to overwhelm his creativity.”
“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.”
“The human quest for beauty is thus really a quest for the source of that beauty, which is mediated through the things of this world, not contained within them.”
“To its critics, the study of theology distracts from real life. But, at its best, theology inspires and informs precisely the committed and caring ministry.”
topics: theology
“When the old poets made some virtue their theme, they were not teaching but adoring,”
“The imaginative is produced by the human mind as it tries to respond to something greater than itself, struggling to find images adequate to the reality.”
topics: imagination
“Literature offers us a different way of seeing things. The reading of literature opens our eyes, offering us new perspectives on things that we can evaluate and adopt. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. . . . In reading great literature, I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see.[94]”
“One of the most effective ways of changing the way people think is to change the way they worship.”
― Alister McGrath ,
from Reformation Thought
“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival. —C. S. LEWIS, “Equality”
“The study of the past helps us to appreciate that the ideas and values of our own age are just as provisional and transient as those of bygone ages. The intelligent and reflective engagement with the thought of a bygone era ultimately subverts any notion of "chronological snobbery". Reading texts from the past makes it clear that what we now term "the past" was once "the present", which proudly yet falsely regarded itself as having found the right intellectual answers and moral values that had eluded its predecessors.”
“The reading of old books enables us to avoid becoming passive captives of the Spirit of the Age by keeping “the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds.”415”
“Faith reaches out to where reason points and does not limit itself to where reason stops.”
“For Christian writers, religious faith is not a rebellion against reason, but a revolt against the imprisonment of humanity within the cold walls of a rationalist dogmatism.”
“Curiously, Dawkins and Dennett remain firmly committed to the outmoded notion that science and religion are permanently in conflict—an idea often referred to as the “warfare” thesis. This is now regarded as quite unacceptable by historians of science, chiefly because it is so difficult to reconcile with the facts of history.8”
“Good does not triumph unless good people rise to the challenge that is around them.”
“Take the Gospel parables: what are these stories, these narratives, if not powerful invitations to people to locate themselves within the situations of others, precisely in order to realize the moral landscapes of their life, so that they may develop their spiritual, empathetic and imaginative view of reality?”
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Alister Edgar McGrath is a Christian theologian and apologist, who holds both a PhD (in molecular biophysics) and an earned Doctor of Divinity degree from Oxford. He is noted for his work in historical, systematic and scientific theology. He was formerly an atheist.
In his writing and public speaking, he promotes "scientific theology" and opposes antireligionism. McGrath was until recently Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, but has now taken up the chair of Theology, Religion and Culture at King's College London since September 2008. Until 2005, he was principal of Wycliffe Hall.
McGrath is a prolific writer. His work often refers both to the early Church Fathers and to contemporary evangelical stalwarts such as Thomas Torrance and J. I. Packer. His areas of expertise include doctrine, Church history, the interaction of science and faith, and evangelical spirituality.
In 2005 he resigned as Principal of Wycliffe Hall, whilst remaining President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics which was based there.